Wicked: Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West

I finally finished Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West book by Gregory Mcguire. Originally, I wasn't too sure if I was going to read this or not since I really loved the musical and I heard that the book is so much different. I decided to just get it over with just read the darned thing.

This book wasn't an easy read for me for 2 different reasons:
1.) I have a preconceived notion of how some of the charcters looked like and what their relationship was with one another. I was imagining the characters in the book to look the same as the characters in the musical. I had a hard time going along with the charater descriptions in the book. Take for instance Elphaba. In my head I see Eden Espinosa in green. It doesn't really work for the book since she's much prettier than the descriptions in the book and her features are so much different. Plus the fact that in the first part of the musical, Elphaba was this very naive and vulnerable girl and it wasn't played out this way in the book. She was more of a skeptic and quite fiendish from the start in the book. I know I should've separated the book from the musical however, I could not help it since I saw the musical first and I really loved it.

This is Eden in green:


2.) The pace of the book was really sloooooooooow. I enjoyed the first part of the book that talked about Elphaba's childhood up to the point when she was at Shiz. I wasn't really too thrilled with the middle part of the book. I was so tempted to skip the middle chapters but I promised myself that I was going to read the whole darned thing. It just dragged on and on and didn't really start picking up until Part V: The Murder and Its Afterlife when Dorothy appeared in Oz and things started to pick up and became interesting again.

If I had to rate the book, I would give it 3 stars out of 5 just for ingenuity. The book has such a wonderful premise. I applaud Gregory Mcguire for taking the fairytale Wizard of Oz, shaking it up and making the story stand up on its head. It's a completely different view of the Wicked Witch of the West and the Wizard of Oz. They writing style is a little bit dry and oftentimes boring as hell. In the middle part of the book, I can only go through several pages before my eyes would start to roll towards the back of my head. If I probably haven't seen the musical, I would've given up after the first part of the book.

The book is so much darker and has a lot of political tones and some sexual scenes which is absent from the musical (well, of course!). The musical is a very loose adaptation of the book however, I enjoyed the story in the musical a lot more. I liked the fact that they concentrated more on the friendship of Elphaba and Glinda. Hey, what can I say, I'm shallow. :P

This book would've been wonderful for discussions regarding good and evil in the Philosphy of man class that I took in college. It brings up questions such as: a.) What is evil? b.) Does evil exist? c.) Is a person born evil or is evilness thrust upon them? I guess I could try to find discussion groups for the book but I just don't feel like reading it all over again at a much slower pace.

My favorite quotes from the book that are pretty much absent from the muscial are the following:

"People always did like to talk, didn't they? That's why i call myself a witch now: the Wicked Witch of the West, if you want the full glory of it. As long as people are going to call you a lunatic anyway, why not get the benefit of it? It liberates you from convention" --Elphaba

"People who claim that they're evil are usually no worse than the rest of us. It's people who claim that they're good, or anyway better than the rest of us, that you have to be wary of." --Boq

"Remember this: Nothing is written in the stars. Not these stars, nor any others. No one controls your destiny." --Princess Nastoya

I'm putting down my notes here regarding some of the differences of book from the musical that I'd like to remember without having to read the book all over again. If you have plans on reading the book, please read this blog no further.

*** SPOILER ALERT ***

* Frex did love Elphaba although not as much as he loved Nessarose. He considered Elphaba to be the strong one among his kids and she didn't need any type of protection.
* Boq knew Elphaba before they met at Shiz. They were in the same play group when they were little.
* Fiyero is married with 3 kids. So pretty much, Elphaba was having an affair with a married man. There were rumors that Glinda and Fiyero had relations but it was just rumors.
* Avaric is not Fiyero's servant.
* Elphaba is allergic to water. So it may be true that water did melt her when Dorothy threw a pail of water at her. Not with the intention of killing but instead of saving her from burning.
* Fiyero was murdered. It's a little bit unclear whether it was because of Elphaba or because he was a Winkie prince.
* Chistery was not the wizard's monkey servant. Elphaba saved the monkey from being killed by the dog while on their way to Kiamo Ko. Later on she was trying to teach the monkey to talk.
* Elphaba found the Grimmerie at the floor of a wardrobe at Kiamo Ko. The wizard only got hold of the Grimmerie through Dorothy after Dorothy killed the witch and went back to Oz with proof that the witch was dead. Dorothy also brought back the green elixir bottle back to the wizard and not Glinda.
* It was Glinda that placed a spell on Nessarose's shoes and not Elphaba. Glinda was more of a secondary character in the book. There really wasn't that much about the friendship between Glinda and Elphaba in the book.
* Boq was more of a primary character in the book and Glinda was a secondary character.